Nippatsu Mitsuzawa Stadium, Sports stadium in Kanagawa-ku, Japan.
Nippatsu Mitsuzawa Stadium is a football ground in Mitsuzawa Park, Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama, with a single natural-grass pitch of 130 by 74 metres ringed by a running track. Concrete stands on three sides seat 15,454 spectators, with 5,580 in the main stand and blue seats under its roof; four steel floodlight masts stand at the corners.
Construction began in 1951 and the stadium was completed in 1955 for the 10th National Sports Festival held in Kanagawa Prefecture. It hosted football preliminaries during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, including an Iran–Germany match on 11 October 1964 that drew 13,000 spectators. It was also a venue of the 1979 FIFA World Youth Championship, and in 1993 it was expanded to about 15,000 seats for the launch of the J.League.
The stadium's nickname "Nippatsu" comes from naming-rights holder NHK Spring, a spring manufacturer based in Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, since March 2008. Yokohama FC, whose roots trace to the former Yokohama Flügels, treats Mitsuzawa as its spiritual home and plays most home games here, while Yokohama F. Marinos appear only occasionally. The ground also hosts the Kanagawa final of the national high school football championship.
The stadium has no dedicated car park, so visitors come by public transport. It is a 15-minute walk from Mitsuzawa-kamicho Station on the Yokohama Municipal Subway Blue Line, or a 2- to 5-minute walk from the Mitsuzawa Sogo Ground bus stop, served by Yokohama city and Sotetsu buses from Yokohama Station's west exit. The ground is beside the Yokohama Ikuta road and close to the Mitsuzawa interchange of the Kanagawa 2 route and the Daisan Keihin road.
The naming rights belong to NHK Spring, a spring manufacturer based in Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, and the contract runs until 28 February 2031. The J.League's English name uses the company's English title, NHK Spring, while the club Yokohama FC asked that the abbreviation change from "Nippa-kyu" to "Nippatsu" in 2015 because another company called Nippa exists in the city.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 93,522 contributors worldwide.